It’s time to start looking ahead to the 2013 fantasy baseball season. Here are a couple players noticeably affected by OPS.

Kevin Youkilis – Sigh no more, fantasy owners. I’m expecting a rebound for Youkilis in 2013. I’ll admit that I was worried about The Greek God of Injures at the beginning of this year after his slow start, especially since he’s past his peak years and has a storied injury history. Youk fact of the day: he has never played more than 147 games in a season. Worse yet, he hasn’t played in over 140 games in a season since 2008. Meanwhile, he only graced us with his mediocre presence in 122 games this past season. Despite it sounding like time to jump ship, I’m going to advocate steering back towards the old man. On a side note, how weird will it be to see him on the Yankees? Although this wouldn’t be the first time a Red Sox player moved to the Bronx…

Here is a look at the 2012 value of shortstops in OPS fantasy leagues. This is meant to help illustrate their relative value with OPS as a component. They are listed from highest to lowest OPS. Note that I only included players with at least 300 plate appearances in 2012. Please, blog, may I have some more?

Here is a look at the value of second basemen over the past season in OPS fantasy leagues. This is not meant to be a ranking so much as adding a lens to illustrate their relative value with OPS as a component. Please, blog, may I have some more?

Here is a look at the value of first basemen over the past season in OPS fantasy leagues. This is not meant to be a ranking so much as adding a lens to illustrate their relative value with OPS as a component. Please, blog, may I have some more?

Here is a look at the value of catchers over the past season in OPS fantasy leagues. This is not meant to be a ranking so much as adding a lens to illustrate their relative value with OPS as a component. Please, blog, may I have some more?

This week I was curious to look at what I call surprisingly high sluggers. No, I’m not talking about Geovany Soto. These are players who have at least a .500 slugging this year and fewer than 20 home runs. In order to try to limit some of the outliers, I only looked at players who had at least 300 plate appearances this year. Please, blog, may I have some more?